That's a stupid definition of cleanliness, just to call something clean because it looks clean to the eyes. You have to look at the totality of what is happening there. It might look clean to the eyes, but something extremely violent is happening there — and which is made worse by the fact that it is not visible.
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Questioner: Good evening, Acharya Ji. My first question is: why is it that we are not taught about basic cleanliness in our homes and in our schools? I observed that people over here put the dirt in the designated areas, but back home they throw it everywhere. However, both are the same — both are Indians. So, there we have Indians, and here we are the same. So why is that?
Acharya Prashant: As far as I can see, there is no deep reason behind that. As you rightly said, the person is the same. And if the person is the same and has started behaving differently, then obviously the change is not coming from within, right?
The person is the same means the insides are the same. It's a matter of the environment. And when it's the environment that functions upon you, words like understanding or light or realization or love or care do not hold much relevance. It's not as if Indians over here, or the general population over here, is internally cleaner or more illuminated, and that's why you find external cleanliness.
It's about the rules, regulations, the fear, the greed, the enforcement, the execution, the penalties, the incentives, the disincentives — what you see around yourself and how it influences you. Which also means that if the person who is here happens to go back home, he probably might find his old habits returning over a matter of time — because the person was anyway the same.
